Phantom Realm
by MermaidGirl34
Summary: Danny always thought he'd have a choice when he died - completely, that is. Either become a full ghost, or go...on, wherever that may be. The Ghost Zone itself, however, seems to have other ideas. Exploration of the Ghost Zone and the Phandom itself. Bit angsty, 'cause...'cause ghosts.
1. The Ghost Zone Sucks

**(A/N: First DP fic! Woo! So, this is just a small story that is really just an exploration of the Ghost Zone and Danny's place in it as a halfa. First chapter's just an intro, the real fun happens in chapter two! : ) Thanks for reading!)**

The three of them just sort of sat there and stared at the metal hexagon in languid despair. They were all thinking the same thing.

The Ghost Zone sucks.

"Maybe if we bang on it long enough, she'll come back," Tucker offered lamely, knowing full well it wasn't actually an option.

"Maybe if I bang on your head long enough, you'll grow brains," Sam quipped back and Danny just sighed.

"I'm going to have to go in after her, aren't I," he groaned softly, muscles already twitching at the thought of the future torture he would to have to endure. Both physical _and _mental.

Valerie never seemed to have a lack of pain to dish out on him.

Sam just stared at the portal doors unseeingly. "How did this all happen, anyway?"

Danny's hand flew into the air and he made a strangled sound. "I don't _know_!" he exclaimed. "She was on me and I thought I lost her, and the ghost shield was down so I just phased down here. I didn't think she'd _actually_ bust through the house to get to me."

Sam shot him a look. "It's _Valerie,_" she reminded him. "She'd do anything to blast you."

Danny rubbed his eyes tiredly. "Yeah. It's getting old," he mumbled.

Sam rolled her eyes. "So she busted on down," she continued. "Why in the _world _was the portal open?"

At this, Tucker emitted a barely audible squeak and the other two turned to look at him.

The tech geek rubbed the hair under his cap uncomfortably. His eyes flickered briefly to one of the lab tables and Danny and Sam followed his gaze.

A blackened, smoking device lay nestled behind a beaker.

"Ectoplasm charges _so _much better than electricity," Tucker explained in a rush, half-excited half-guilty. "The battery lasts a full _week!"_

"_Tucker!" _Danny and Sam exclaimed in unison and Tucker threw his hands in front of his face. "Sorry, sorry!" he spluttered. "It was Danny who faked her _in _it, not me!"

Sam's infuriated gaze shot to Danny then and he put his hands up as well. "She dived for me and I dodged!" he defended himself. "She got a shot in and I fell on the lever. It was an accident."

Another famous eye roll, this one gigantic. "You're both idiots," Sam decided with finality, before getting up and grabbing her jacket. After all, the Ghost Zone was unnaturally cold.

Danny frowned after her. "I said I'd just go," he reminded her slowly. "Tucker's phone or no, this is my fault."

Tucker vaguely murmured, "it's a GPS" as Sam delivered a vehement glare at Danny. The half-ghost cringed under her wrath.

"If you really think that Tucker and I are going to let you go into the Ghost Zone alone, you've lost too many brain cells," Sam sniffed, zipping her jacket up. "Right, Tucker?"

But the latter half of the non-ghost duo looked unsure. "Well…" he trailed, already cringing at the glare he knew he was going to get. "We _do _have that math test tomorrow…"

The glare came full force and Tucker recoiled fearfully. "Hey, we're both failing math!" he pointed out. "And I'm _good _at calculus…"

"Danny's got that test too!" Sam sputtered, furious. "And he's failing _English, _too!"

But Danny just smiled. "I'm not going to school tomorrow," he reminded her smugly. "Remember? My Mom's taking me to the NASA Astronomy convention in Greenville."

Sam's look deflated and Tucker chuckled. "He's got you there," he chortled.

_Whumf. _ The black jacket when slapping to the hard lab floor. Next thing Danny knew, he had a finger wagging in his face.

"If you die," Sam hissed. "And I mean _completely _die, Danny Fenton, you'll be _worse _than dead."

And with that, she stalked off up the stairs.

Danny just watched her go, grinning, because no one else would really have a sentence like that said to them. Mostly because he was the only one that sentence could ever be said_ to._

Besides maybe Vlad.

Ew.

Behind him, Tucker began to gather up his Calc supplies.

"She'll be back with her books," he assured Danny. "I'll keep her busy. Just…be careful, okay?" He cleared his throat. "And keep Val safe for me."

"Sure," Danny said, smiling reassuringly at him. As Tucker watched, there was a flash of near-blinding white light. He looked away and when he looked back, his best friend was now an apparition.

"I'll be back before you can say 'boo'," Danny said, and his ghostly voice echoed off the lab walls as he stalked forward and opened the portal doors with one gloved hand.

Swirling ectoplasm greeted him. With an inborn sigh and a flex of his exhausted muscles, Danny forced himself to be sucked inside.

The Ghost Zone sucks.


	2. Ghost Hunters Suck

Danny really hated the Ghost Zone when he wasn't in it.

Inside of it, all he really wanted to do was curl up somewhere warm and sleep. Not that the chill of the Ghost Zone really affected him, being half-ghost and all, but the sheer _atmosphere _gave him the willies. He felt so on edge, like a ghost might attack him at any moment.

Mostly because one probably would. Danny wasn't exactly _popular _among the ghost's here.

Well, he _was_ popular, but in a rip-him-atom-from-atom type way, not frat party kind of way. Danny guessed his parents could also be lumped in with that Let's-Kill-Phantom bandwagon. He led one twisted life.

As he floated amongst the eerie display of purplish doors dotting the bleak, green landscape, Danny rolled a small ball of ectoplasmic energy between his fingers cautiously. He had no idea where in the Ghost Zone Valerie may have disappeared to, or who she might have encountered. Nine times out of ten the ghosts you meet in the GZ were not friendly though, and Valerie herself wasn't exactly on his side. Not totally. Better air on the side of caution.

Danny sped up, maneuvering his way around various lazy islands, each depicting its own scene or place depending on its inhabitants. He tried not to look at them much. Ghost's realms always gave him the heebie jeebies and he was glad he had a real home and not an ectoplasmic one.

The scream of a female battle cry pierced the ghostly fog just then and Danny's hands snapped alight with green fire.

He'd recognize that battle cry anywhere.

"Val - _Huntress!" _he yelled, catching his slip as he switched his direction and shot off in the direction of Valerie's voice. Islands flew by in greenish-purple blurs until -_ red._

_ "Oof!" _The red had come in a lot faster than he expected, and Danny found himself suddenly tangled in a mix of black, white, and red limbs and angry screams rang over his head that only really ever belonged to one person.

_"PPPPHANTOM!"_

_ "Sorry!" _Danny said with a gasp that ended in a grunt as Val quite literally chucked him off her. "Sorry, sorry, I - _woah!_"

A shot of pink sizzled past his shoulder and slit his suit like butter. Danny's hand clutched it as a little bit of ectoplasmic blood dribbled down and he looked up with almost-hurt, although he hadn't exactly not expected it.

"Really, Red?" he muttered. "I know we've had our squabbles, but that one was an honest mis - "

"Wasn't_ me_, ecto-brain!" Val cut him off and Danny let out another _"oof" _as Valerie tackled _him _this time. Another pink blast promptly whizzed over their heads.

"It was this _other _ecto-brain," Val hissed, swiveling around on her board and aiming her wrist blaster at the offending shooter. Danny peered over her shoulder with wide eyes.

_Crap._

Broad shoulders, white jacket, purple buttons, striped pants, stupid little fedora -

Just needed that Texas drawl.

"Aw, looks like cowgirls' got a _partner!"_

There it was.

_"Walker," _Danny hissed. The name earned him a little smile from the psycho prison warden, even as the rule-crazy ghost's eyes flashed green and he grew a good foot.

"Friend of yours?" Valerie spat.

"Not the word I would use," Danny muttered. "Let's just say, I screwed him over once. Or twice."

"Sounds familiar," Val murmured, letting off a shot that Walker easily evaded in a cloud of green mist. _Right._ Danny had forgotten he did that.

"Yeah, yeah, hilarious," Danny gripped, shifting into a battle stance and snapping his fingers alight with ecto-fire. "How 'bout we bring him down?"

"Yeah, sure," Valerie snapped, and Danny shrieked suddenly as he was thrown downwards by a large weight. Ropes snapped around his midsection immediately and electricity racked his body like fire. His limbs instantly grew limp and he went crashing down onto the nearest ghost island below, immobilized and hardly conscious.

"But there is no 'we', _ghost," _Valerie snarled, before zipping back around to face Walker.

"All right, _stripy!" _she yelled, spreading her arms with a smirk. "Let's tango."

Danny could just barely hear Walker's laugh over the ringing in his ears, before both him and Valerie disappeared in flashes of pink and red.

He was alone, trapped, and barely conscious. _Fantabulous._

He pressed his forehead to the cold stone of whatever island he'd landed on, trying to keep conscious, but failing slowly. He was so...drained. He just...just wanted to…

_Sleeeeep._

"GAH!"

Danny started awake, only to have his head slammed back down by a familiar net. _Awesome. _

Yelling and shooting had resumed above him, and Danny could hear Valerie's battle cry not far from him. He couldn't exactly turn his head, but he was pretty sure it was the same battle.

_Ugh. _How long had he been out? His head felt like he had staples in it.

_He should be helping. _With a groan and an effort, Danny tried to turn himself around in the net, but failed, only really pining himself down more. What sort of new net _was _this? It was a heck of a lot more restricting than previous ones he'd encountered.

He kinda hated technology sometimes.

Suddenly, all shouting and blasting ceased and an eerie quiet fell over the Zone. It chilled Danny straight to the bone, if that was at all correct in this form or in this place. If it was quiet…

Valerie was _never _quiet.

"Valerie!" he yelled, screwing all formality and eyes wide with fear. She couldn't get hurt, not _here. _He'd never forgive himself. _"Valerie!?"_

But only silence met his calls.

Only silence and two, big red boots.

Danny stared at their tips with relief. "Don't _do _that to me," he murmured, sighing. "Gave me a heart attack." He laughed for a second, before it faltered. "Um, not that I have one, of course," he rushed.

He expected a snort, or some sort of snide remark on his humor. But he didn't get one. Instead, Valerie only kneeled down to his level and removed her mask, looking down on him solemnly.

"Sorry, ghost," she said somberly. "Really, no hard feelings, but I need to get _out _of this creep hole and one human against _all _the ghost's isn't the fight I'm looking for today."

Danny's smile wavered. "Valerie?" he breathed.

But Val just shook her head sadly, placing her mask back solidly over his face. "Sorry again," she said, although she didn't sound all that sorry. "I'm sure you'll find your way out of the woodwork one day, but this'll keep you out of my hair, and 'sides."

She kicked her board into gear and it whined as she took to the air.

"Maybe this is where a ghost like you belongs."

And then she was gone, and Danny was abandoned in her net, his frozen core seemingly actually freezing over in horror as she left him to rot in the Ghost Zone.

Slowly, almost ironically, a cool, broad-shouldered shadow slipped over him and Danny exhaled heavily.

"Oo, the two of us are going to have so much _fun,_" Walker chuckled.


End file.
